Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Vampire
by giselle-lx
Summary: A series of short jaunts into the minds of those who know him best.
1. Child

**Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Vampire  
** by giselle-lx

I.

In the darkness, the house is quiet.

They share a bedroom, as they always have. William remembers that first night, when the boy stood there, homesick for his nurse and too scared to fall asleep in his own bed next to a man who was more stranger than family. So William pushed him onto the trundle, climbed into his own bed, and pretended to sleep through the wet sobbing coming from the floor beside him.

Men sleep on their own, William had told him then, and it was no good for him not to be a man. He would learn.

And learned he has. Learned so well not to beg for affection that it is a rare day when the two so much as exchange words. And so it is only in this silent house after the boy has collapsed on the trundle that William is able to even get a good look at him.

The golden hair fans out over broad shoulders which rise and fall as he breathes. A body which twenty-three years ago fit easily into William's palms—that tiny body grew into this one, over six feet tall and fourteen stone. Wide shoulders and a strong back, the high soprano voice having given way first to the cracking stutter, and finally settling into a rich baritone that William never hears except in shouting.

They fight _so much_.

The boy wishes to be a barrister, and William wishes for him to be a pastor. In this darkness, when the boy is asleep—when they are not screaming at one another—William can admit to himself that it is not to break the boy's will that he insists that he position himself to take over the church. It is because the boy is better, purer, more even-tempered and loving than William himself. Easy to love, quick to offer love in return. Slow to anger, or, at least with everyone else. He is Christlike, much more than William will ever be able to be.

But he cannot tell the boy this, and so they spend their days in shouting matches, with William the only person who ever elicits so much as a scowl from him.

In the moonlight, William's son's skin looks even paler and more delicate than it does in the day. He inherited her fair coloring, her eyes, her hair, her thin lips. When people talk about him, William hears them call him _beautiful,_ not _handsome._ They murmur their condolences, reminded of his loss. And William can't help but to think that they are right, because above all else the boy is _her_ son, not his—and each cold shoulder, each fight, each time the boy hisses his disapproval, it is as though it comes from her.

As though he loses her again, in pieces, every single day.

So it is that sitting here, at night, while his son lies sleeping, is the only time that William gives himself to mourn. To remember how beautiful his wife was, and how strong, to imagine their family as it might have been, with not just one boy but several, and girls too—the family that would serve the church and the world. The only time to stare at this man who has grown from a freckle-faced boy into a taciturn stranger, and know that he is all William has left of that dream, and of her.

In twenty-three years, William has learned to weep without sound so that his child will not wake. And he does this, standing over the trundle but not bending over, so that the tears that make their way down his cheeks and drip off his chin, splash one at a time onto the floor.

 _Love_ is not a word that has ever come to William easily, and so he does not speak it into the darkness. Instead, when his tears subside, he removes his own clothing to prepare for sleep. But as he climbs into bed, he reaches down to lay a hand on the broad back. And for a brief moment, the expression, hardened even in sleep, softens, the muscles, tensed as though preparing for a fistfight, relax. The young man—for that is what he is now, William thinks—sighs.

And William utters the one word he can, the word he is careful not to say when his child is awake, the source of so much of their arguing. The name his wife wanted, that his son prefers, and which tears William's heart in two every time it passes his lips.

"Goodnight, Carlisle," he whispers.

But it is only the dark which hears him. And soon the hand is withdrawn, the bedcovers pulled, and William, too, falls asleep.


	2. Stranger

II.

The guard are simple beings, for the most part. Ready to gorge themselves sick on the same spoils which have driven humans for millennia—wealth, power, control. If Aro metes these things out in controlled enough doses, they remain content, even happy. Their thoughts stay uncomplicated: the next hunt, besting another at a show of strength, being commended for their usefulness or dedication. They are vapid, predictable, almost boring.

Carlisle Cullen is anything but.

The first time Aro touched the golden-eyed one, it actually hurt. Aro has felt others' pain, many tens of thousands of times over. But this strange, gold-eyed blond—so quiet, so unassuming—is consumed by an emptiness so complete it threatens to suck Aro in. Like the rest of the guard, he hungers, but not for power. His thirst is to know, and to be known—a thirst Aro finds much more difficult to appease.

The Englishman moves as easily among humans as Heidi, but Aro doesn't dare ask him to perform the duties that she does. For that is the most curious, fascinating thing about him—he has never tasted human blood. He wishes to study medicine—to become a physician!—as though that is a normal, simple thing for their kind to do.

So Aro tests him. Bringing humans close to his chambers so that Carlisle will hear them screaming. Leaving a trail of blood from the hallway to the meeting hall. And two weeks ago, an arm, left outside Carlisle's door, which was hurled into the courtyard with such force it shredded against an olive tree.

Despite how different he is, or perhaps because of it, the blond is well-liked. He is affable, slow to judge, unswervingly fair. And though the rest of the guard rib him, they accept him. He has even made friends with Marcus, who hasn't laughed in the better part of three centuries, and yet from whom Carlisle manages to occasionally coax a smile.

It is an overcast day and the blond has been out, somewhere, harvesting herbs, working on medicines that he is putting together from the texts Aro has amassed. So when the door to the meeting hall opens, Aro is not surprised to see him, a flopped bag over his shoulder and a stomach-churning, floral scent floating around him.

He strides to Aro and holds out his palm. This is what they all do upon returning, a gesture of allegiance. Carlisle is nothing if not obedient.

But Aro waves him away. "Was your trip fruitful?" he asks.

"Very," Carlisle answers, patting his bag.

Caius, sitting beside Aro, has stopped breathing. Carlisle seems to notice this too, and nods toward them both. "I will take these away," he says, gesturing to his bag, but he's smirking. He backs away from Aro and Caius, and moves toward the hall.

What Aro is expecting, he isn't really certain. But he listens as the footsteps disappear, the heavy door opens, the leather bag and all its contents plop onto the cold stone floor. And then…nothing.

Caius stares.

"Did you—"

Aro puts a finger to his lips.

It is no more than seconds before the blond emerges, but it feels like an eternity. His eyes, golden from his recent hunt, flash dark. His visage is grotesque: his forearms covered in dark, sticky blood, which drenches his shirt, dripping onto his breeches and splattering his boots. For the first time, Carlisle almost looks like one of them.

But his lips, Aro notices at once, are clean.

Carlisle trembles as he holds the bleeding body, killed so freshly that its heart continued to pump blood even as Chelsea dragged it into Carlisle's room. For a fraction of a second, the Englishman's lip curls in disgust just enough that Aro sees Felix's muscles tense, sensing an imminent attack. Aro steadies Felix with his hand.

Sure enough, just as quickly as it came, the snarl dissolves into a placid, emotionless expression. There is a loud, slapping thud as the body lands on the floor.

"It seems you left this in my quarters," the blond says flatly.

Then he turns on his heel and is gone.

The meeting hall falls so still that it is easy to make out the sounds from Carlisle's chambers. The whisper that is clothing falling to the floor; the splash of water from the pitcher hitting the washbasin so that the blood might be cleaned from the smooth arms.

Aro and Caius stare at the body. It was a man, brutish and menacing. The choice was deliberate to not choose a child or a woman—it would be too easy for the young one, with his compassion, to muster extra resolve. But Aro admits to himself that he'd expected this test would be passed, too, and even though he is slightly in awe, he is not surprised.

"And you still don't think he's dangerous," Caius mutters, using the ancient language the Brothers share.

Aro thinks of the abyss that is the loneliness he feels every time the blond touches him. He thinks about how steadfast and resolute the other man is, the way he listens patiently, does not judge. How even here, where he is so different, he has managed to draw others to him. One day, Aro thinks, that abyss will grow too deep. One day, this stranger will seek companionship. That day, he will begin to build his coven…and it will be built on a foundation that Aro knows he himself does not have.

"I don't think that he's dangerous," he answers carefully, looking at the tangled limbs and the mess of untouched blood.

"I know that he is."


	3. Guardian

III.

Edward is dead, and Junior is dying.

Outside the fortress that is Cook County Hospital there are all manner of things—a fire escape, the steeple of the church down the street. They cast long shadows which creep across her ceiling, evil fingers reaching to choke out the living.

Elizabeth is superstitious. Her mother always chastised her for this; good Irish Catholics believed in the power of the saints to intercede for them. Elizabeth still has her mother's rosary, hanging from her vanity mirror in the home in Irving Park. But she doesn't use it.

She is not a good Catholic. In fact, they are Episcopalian now. She and Edward found the little church through their neighbors, when she was pregnant with Junior. He was baptized there, in the white gown she wore at her own christening, because Senior has five brothers and two sisters and even Heaven probably does not know what became of his christening clothes. But Elizabeth's, now Junior's, are tucked up in the back drawer of the bureau in her bedroom.

The only Christening. Her only baby who lived.

She remembers green eyes and copper curls; fast, chubby legs that carried him through the house with such speed that he toppled over more often than not. Lungs that could wail at a volume that seemed destined to bring down the walls.

He grew up strong, like his father. The curls disappeared, and the chubby legs stretched into a gangly body that was caught between boyhood and manhood. Three weeks ago, like a man, he gruffly took over the accounts, looking at his father's ledgers, no longer sneaking the Lucky Strikes with his friends, but instead choosing his father's cigars. And perhaps it is because neither of them have really acknowledged that Edward is gone, but Junior still seems to be playacting. In his father's hats and coats, Junior still looks as though he is playing dress-up.

He will die still a boy, and that is what hurts the most.

Elizabeth hears familiar footsteps in the hall, and she realizes the shadows have stretched all the way across the room, replaced with the soft glow that is the Chicago twilight—leftover sunlight and headlights and streetlights and moonlight all jumbled together.

The flaxen-haired doctor works only after dark. The other doctors come and go, and she knows why—this illness, this influenza, spares no one, especially the young and able men, as though it is to wipe all those who did not enlist to fight in Wilson's war. If the young doctors don't die, they run—to the country, away from the denseness of the city, where the influenza has them all by the collar.

But not _this_ doctor.

She remembers how carefully he placed Edward's effects into her hands, the way he moved so gracefully. How he was so still next to her as she sobbed, and the gentleness of his voice as he suggested that Junior would want his father's effects. The way he sat with her, even though others rushed past them and he no doubt had other places to be, and by his sitting there, created an inhuman stillness and peace.

If she had to describe what she saw when she looked into his eyes that day, she would say it was pain. But it was more than that. The doctor looks like a boy himself—if she had to guess, he doesn't seem to be but a few years older than Junior, but then he has to be older, to have gone to medical college. And yet, within that youthfulness is a weariness that transcends his age, a loss that seems to absorb multitudes...

His footsteps are quiet as he enters the room. His fingers land upon her neck—they are freezing, but then it is October and Chicago is hurtling toward winter like a locomotive. His sigh is long; he feels something he wishes he didn't, she thinks.

She wants to ask what that is, but her tongue seems numb. Edward's lips had gone completely blue with the cyanosis before he passed, and there's just enough of Elizabeth left to remember this and wonder if she looks the same way to the doctor. As quickly as it came, the hand is gone, and the floorboards creak. A low sound comes from the corner, so quiet it is like a breeze.

Someone once told Elizabeth that in the final moments of life, people hallucinated, as though they were on opium. And maybe that is what is happening now, she thinks, because if she isn't hallucinating, then the doctor is _crying_. Crying and talking so rapidly his voice is little more than a murmur and yet she can hear him—or maybe she is making it up, she isn't sure. Something about not being good enough, about failing them, asking for God to save them.

"Save _him,_ " she says, and her voice startles them both.

His hands are in hers so quickly it is as though she put him there with her words. And perhaps she did. Maybe this is what was meant when people said that dying people felt like they weren't in their bodies. Maybe he moved normally, and it is she who is somehow in two places at once.

But he is there. And she can still speak. So she does.

"Save _him._ " She gestures toward the other bed, or at least, she hopes she does.

The hand, still cold, squeezes hers.

"I will do everything in my power."

Her eyes won't focus properly any longer, but he seems as startled by his choice of wording as she is. A doctor who cries, who looks so young and whose eyes look so old…

She grips his hand, with what strength, she isn't sure.

"You _must,_ " she manages, choking on the first words. "You must do everything…in _your_ power."

The eyes look down at her. They are such a strange color—a honey amber that she's never seen before. She stares up at him, even though his face is blurred.

Is this what death is like? she wonders. Imagining a doctor who talks to God? Thinking these eyes mean anything more than just some strange color inherited from his mother?

She doesn't know. But she knows that without her, her only baby will not win the fight. There must be another. Someone must take her place.

"What others cannot do," she wheezes, " _that_ is what you must do for my Edward."

The icy hands are gone as quickly as they came, and the room is deathly still. Perhaps she has imagined that he was even here. Perhaps she has made him up all along.

But Elizabeth is almost dead, and Junior is still dying.

So as she breathes her last, shuddering breath, she hopes.

~||x||~

A short historical note: though Meyer pegs Edward's death in August, she's not much for historical research, and after hating having to write historically inaccurate things in my first fanfics, I now choose to side with history when canon is anachronistic. The majority of deaths of influenza occurred in October, and in my headcanon, Elizabeth and Edward died on October 17, 1918-"Black Thursday."


	4. Healer

IV.

Even mauled, he's beautiful in a strange, boyish way. His curls remind her of Vera's baby, but he is strong in a way she can't imagine that baby ever growing up to be. The bear was already on the defensive by the time she made it onto the scene, and she's almost sorry she killed it—she wasn't hungry and the family makes it a point to kill only what they need.

The family.

The other three are a family at any rate. Mother, father, son. They pretend with so much effort at times it threatens to break them all. It's a game she has refused to play. And so Edward hates her for being selfish, and Esme is sad for her, and Carlisle…

Well, Carlisle just makes her angry.

She has screamed at him so many times. Slammed so many doors in his face that Esme eventually took them all off their hinges—with their hearing, it's not as though any of them have any privacy anyway. And he takes this so placidly. If she screams at him that he is a narcissistic bastard with history's biggest god complex, he cocks his head to one side and asks if she really thinks that, or is she merely angry? And if she does really think that, does she want to talk about what parts of his behavior make her think this way?

So she slams the doors instead.

It was twelve hours ago in the late afternoon that she came racing through the cellar door, one of the only ones left in the house. Her blouse was soaked through, and her arms covered in the thick, tarry substance. The substance that is supposed to turn her into a demon. The substance that is supposed to make her less than, and more than, human.

She was too afraid to bite him, because she doesn't really understand how it is done. And there is only one of them who knows that.

Rosalie hopes it will go down in history as the only time she asks Carlisle for help.

He appeared as soon as her lips formed his name, the look on his face equal measure surprise and awe. To his credit, he said nothing to her, murmuring only loud enough for the others to hear that they ought not come into the cellar for a good while. Carlisle doesn't yell, and this has never been a comfort before today.

She waved her hands helplessly, and said only, "I found him this way. I want—"

But she couldn't say what she wanted. The words felt like a betrayal.

And Carlisle only nodded. He straightened the broken limbs, mopped up the blood, took the pulse, as though they had been planning this for weeks.

It was only before he bent over the neck that he said anything at all. He paused, locking eyes with hers, gold on gold.

"Are you certain?"

She nodded.

She was surprised at his precision. Behaving as though this were any other surgery and he was using a scalpel instead of his own teeth. The way he was careful to rinse his mouth out after each bite. The little white handkerchief, which materialized from nowhere, which he used to wipe his lips.

And when he was done, the way he left her sitting there, holding the beautiful man's hand, as though the man was any ordinary patient and she was any ordinary wife.

Twelve hours later, and the curly-haired man's screams have dullened to low groans. She hasn't heard footsteps overhead in hours and she suspects that the others have left her alone.

But then she does hear footfall, walking across the kitchen floor, and the door swings open to the cellar. Carlisle emerges, carrying a thick quilt that Esme bought at a county fair some years ago. Like before, he doesn't say anything to Rose, and spreads the blanket over the man, his patient.

"It will drop below freezing tonight," he offers. "And he will still feel the cold for a day or so yet."

Of course he thought about a blanket. But this gesture, simple as it is, suddenly unleashes a flood of worry. Carlisle knows how long the beautiful man will feel the cold. Rosalie does not. She doesn't know who he will be when he wakes. And what if he doesn't wish to stay? What if he is angry about this being done to him?

What if he feels the way she does?

She admits she's relieved when Carlisle crosses his legs and sits next to her. She doesn't say what she is thinking, but he seems to understand anyway.

"This hasn't become any less frightening than it was when I turned Edward," he offers.

The thought strikes Rose as odd. Of the many things she thinks Carlisle is—good and bad, impulsive and peaceful, god-complex and all, she doesn't imagine him being _afraid_ of things. She turns her head so that she can stare at him, and he doesn't meet her eyes, instead staring ahead at the curly-haired man, lost in thought.

"I was so worried that Edward would hate me for what I had done." A tiny smile cracks across his lips. "He didn't. At least…not right away. His forgiveness was more than I deserved. All of you are more than I deserve."

With the blanket, Carlisle has brought down a small gas lantern, and the light flickers hauntingly across the planes of his face as Rosalie stares at him. For several more minutes, they sit there in the darkness, the earthy damp of the cellar swirling around them, the only sound the occasional grunt from the man.

"It's selfish," she says finally. It's a charge she's leveled at Carlisle at least weekly for the last two years.

To her surprise, he nods.

"It is," he replies evenly. "The most selfish thing I've ever done. You've never been wrong about that, Rose."

He gets to his feet, brushing dirt off his pants. Then he turns, and lays a hand on her shoulder.

"It's also one of the few things about which I have absolutely no regrets."

Rosalie regrets. She regrets the life she dreamed she'd live with Royce, of her babies, of growing old with her girlfriends. The hopes she'd had for her human self, and then that terrible night it had all come crashing down…

And Rosalie finally admits to herself that, god complex or no, Carlisle Cullen had nothing to do with that.

He stops as he reaches the stairs. "I pray that he brings you the peace you deserve," he says quietly.

In the dark, the lamplight flickers and makes the man's curls shine. He reminds her of Vera's baby, and of the hopes she had before that awful night. She lets herself dream again of a future, of a husband, of contentment, of a family. And as she stares at the cellar door where Carlisle has disappeared, she lets a tiny, stubborn part of her feel forgiveness...

...at least, a little.


	5. Confessor

V.

They've never _not_ had a dining table. A stupid extravagance, he thinks, especially seeing as Esme often keeps it set with off-white table linens and white china, as though they will sit down and feast at any minute. Alice must have warned her to pick up the china before tonight, because it was gone before any of them took their seats.

Edward, who is the favorite child, is very prone to throwing things.

They need the big table, because even though there are only seven of them, they are big. Big personalities. Big concerns. They need room for all those people, and all those feelings.

And there are enough of those to drive Jasper outside.

In the distance, the Sol Duc rumbles, crashing against the rocks that make up its shore. Here in the cold, with the river slamming by in the distance—out here the feelings are dulled, and he needs that.

Through the glass, Jasper can see that they are all slowly standing from the empty table. Rosalie flew upstairs with Emmett fast on her heels the second it was clear she wouldn't get her way. She's like that, and after a half-century, Jasper is used to the whiplash that is her emotions. Esme is positively glowing, which was not the outcome that Jasper would've predicted. But then, it wasn't until he and Rosalie were shut down that Alice could see where this whole mess was even headed, and when she uttered the words, "Edward is in love with her," Esme about choked. She has her thin arms around Edward's shoulders now, whispering to him how much she loves him; how proud of him she is.

Edward, for his part, is mostly just confused. The knot in his stomach is in Jasper's, making them both feel like they could be sick any minute. Jasper remembers this feeling—it's the same feeling he got when the flighty, too-talkative, spikey-haired sprite showed up in his world.

He's thinking about this when the door slides open and the earthy scent of spice wafts into the freezing air. Covens reek in hues of the same scent; the stronger it is, the more have been sired by the same individual. It's a sign to others of their kind that the group is unlikely to be disloyal—a warning that fighting this group is likely to end badly. Jasper and Alice alone do not smell like the other five. They don't belong to Carlisle.

In the moonlight, the honey-colored hair shines almost silver. It's a bizarre look, because while on the one hand, their leader looks forever impossibly young, on the other, his face holds the wisdom of centuries, and silver hair seems to suit him in a strange way.

The older vampire—because he's the only one who is older—is silent as he comes to the deck railing and leans against it. He exhales slowly, his still-warm breath making the little cloud of condensation, as though he is human.

At times like these, Carlisle certainly seems so.

For a long while, they both stare into the starlit darkness, listening to the river.

"I am sorry," Jasper says finally, and Carlisle turns his head. His brow is furrowed.

"You're sorry?"

"For suggesting…" Jasper trails off. It is impossible to utter the words again in front of their coven leader, and he cuts himself off before he's even begun. "I didn't know that Edward was…well."

There comes a noise that is halfway between a chuckle and a sigh. "None of us could have foreseen this," Carlisle says, and gestures grandly toward the house.

Through the window, he sees Alice. Edward is glowering at her, but she is beaming.

The stunt, with the car, and the girl—it could have cost Jasper his mate. They all could have been exposed. They all could be destroyed. The risk…

 _The risk is nothing to the greater risk_ , Carlisle's voice echoes in Jasper's head.

 _We risk losing the essence of who we are._

"I didn't mean what I said. Well, I did, but, I didn't know—"

Another exhale, and this time the voice is harder, more frustrated. "I know, Jasper." And then he falls silent.

And he does know. Jasper can feel it. That he had been forgiven, almost the instant the words had left his lips. Forgiven for suggesting that they together terminate the existence of the girl; so human, so fragile. Forgiven that for thinking it was simple.

Forgiven for suggesting they kill his brother's mate.

He hates this about Carlisle, if he admits it. Mistakes aren't supposed to be forgiven. Mistakes earn you extra witches from his daddy's belt. Mistakes meant duty picking up bodies on the battlefield. Mistakes meant extra humans turned to Maria's army. But even though Jasper grew up going to the Southern churches that told him his sins would be forgiven if he repented, Carlisle's the only person he's ever met who seems to mean it, and well, it's unsettling.

"I wish you wouldn't."

"Wouldn't what?"

"Forgive me."

It is only because their vision is perfect that Jasper can see Carlisle's brow furrow in the dark.

"Did I forgive you?"

Jasper nods.

Carlisle sinks back on his elbows. "Huh. Because I wasn't sure." He stares back into the house. Esme has her arms around Edward now, and Jasper can feel Carlisle bristling—protective of them both.

"So what do we do?" Jasper asks finally.

"What do we do?"

"About the girl."

Patience has never been Jasper's virtue. Most things about this life, before Alice, were hell, and he's not confused about that. But the speed, that was glorious. He loves the speed.

Not Carlisle. He moves quickly when he hunts, and when he's playing sports with them, and when he's chasing Edward. But the rest of the time, he is deliberate, like he is now, shifting his weight to his back foot as though he is uncomfortable. Leaning against the railing as though he needs it to support his body.

Jasper thinks, sometimes, that he could learn to move like this. Slowly, like a human.

He could learn to have patience.

Together, they lean back against the railing, and they watch as Esme runs her hands through Edward's hair, and Edward shakes his head, his reddish-brown locks flicking the sides of his face. They watch as Alice stands, walks to the other side of the table, holding up a hand, why? Because Edward snarls at her, and Jasper takes a step before he realizes that Alice was already stopping him, telling him nothing is wrong.

But everything is wrong. Edward didn't throw the dishes, and no one got in any fights, and Jasper and Rosalie have been _forgiven_ , of all things…

"We wait,"the deep voice says at last, snapping Jasper away from the view in the window.

"I'm sorry?"

Carlisle's jaw is set. "We wait," he says again. "That's what we do. We wait."

Before the words have carried on the air, Carlisle is on the other side of the glass doors, whispering something to Esme. And then they are gone, and Alice has materialized in Jasper's arms, and Edward is sitting at the giant table, alone.


	6. Coach

VI.

There are no other cars on the road, and it would be less conspicuous to drive with the headlights off. It's not as if they can't see. But when Emmett suggests this, the strong hands at the wheel tighten, the jaw flexes, and Carlisle shakes his head.

"It wouldn't be safe for a human coming the other way," is all he says. Then the jeep falls deep into silence once again.

A baseball game. That was all it was supposed to be. The cover of thunder, rain kept at bay, the seven of them running, laughing, egging each other on. That was what it had been. Edward, fielding pop flies and catching them all out; Carlisle, alternating handedness, equally likely to smack a ball deep left as deep right; Alice firing pitches that threatened to break the sound barrier.

The only difference was _her_.

She stood there with Esme at the edge of the field, talking. Esme told her about the baby, which surprised Emmett, but then, Bella couldn't know that they could all hear, even racing almost a half-mile between bases. They played as usual—Edward called him a panty-wearing brute, he called Edward a salad tosser, Carlisle told them to cut it out but then cracked one far into right field and, as he rounded the bases, informed them both that they could do something to his genitals that left them with their mouths hanging open.

It seemed only an instant later that they were in the huge house, which has all but exploded. Edward is pacing so hard he's starting to wear a dent in the floorboards —Emmett can see it—and everyone else is trying to get arranged as quickly as possible.

Bella was the one who created the plan. She's much quicker than Edward gives her credit for. And though Carlisle is nowhere near happy when Edward conveys this, he grits his teeth, nods, and starts moving.

"If Esme and Rose take the truck, they can lure the female," he says. "Alice needs to stay with Bella—we need her sight." He glances at Jasper. "Of course that means Jasper is with them."

There's a long look at Edward, who has stopped pacing and stands, frozen. Emmett knows this look; it's the look they all give Edward when something is going unsaid.

Finally, he turns to Emmett. "Edward and I will need your strength."

He nods before he even thinks about it.

Rosalie, however, does not.

"I don't see why we need to help," she says. "Edward brought this on us; it's his problem."

Edward's snarl rattles the windows.

Emmett takes a step toward her. "Rose—" he begins, but Carlisle has already beaten him there. He looks carefully at Rosalie, takes a deep breath, and says exactly the opposite of what Emmett expects him to.

"Edward did bring this on us."

The look on Rosalie's face is pretty much priceless. The one on Edward's, more so.

But Carlisle goes on. "If Bella hadn't been there today, we wouldn't be facing this. But we've faced the need to move quickly before." He shoots a glance at Jasper, and Emmett, then Edward, and then Rosalie herself. One by one, they look away.

"And whatever this family faces," Carlisle continues, "we face it as one." He lays a hand on her shoulder. She flinches, but doesn't bolt. "I need you in this with us, Rose. And I need you to go with Esme. Will you do that for us? Not for Edward, but for us?"

For a moment, the room is still. Emmett watches as Rosalie stares.

But after a second that lasts an eternity, she nods.

Suddenly Bella is back downstairs, dressed in Esme's clothing, which fits but just barely. Carlisle is pressing car keys into hands, passing out cell phones that Emmett didn't even see him retrieve. He looks to Alice for confirmation of the plan, and when she gives her affirmation that yes, it will work, he stalks toward the kitchen, beckoning them behind him.

They all look the other way as Edward kisses Bella, and then they are gone.

In the garage, Emmett leaps into the back seat of the jeep with such force the whole vehicle sways. Edward sits shotgun, curling himself into a ball.

Emmett expects them to peel out, but they don't. Carlisle climbs into the driver's seat as though he is a human, and, like a human, fastens his seat belt. The key finds the ignition.

But before he turns it, he turns his face to Edward.

In the garage, they all look a little eerie—fluorescent light does not do good things to vampires. The light glints off Carlisle's face as he gives Edward a long look, and squeezes his shoulder. This time, Emmett can imagine what is said. On the field, when the others discovered what was going on, though Edward acted foolishly, Carlisle was the one who stood there. Calmly, as though Bella's presence is the most logical thing in the world.

 _"She's with us."_

Bella is the the game changer. The hook and ladder in the red zone with seven seconds left on the clock. The player no one knew was even practicing, who stepped in to make the team function better than it ever had.

The others think Emmett is simple. Well, to be completely honest, they think he's stupid. He knows this. It's because he goes along easily; doesn't question. But that's not because he's dumb. It's because in this family, when everything is at stake, he knows he is needed on the field. They play the game as one: all the right players, playing the right positions.

And with the right man calling the plays.

The wind whips through the jeep as they race off into the mountains in silence. Emmett wonders if they will find the tracker. He wonders where Rose and Esme are, and how far away Alice has managed to get Bella.

Carlisle is still calm, staring straight forward into the night. He doesn't like this, Emmett knows. He would never kill anyone if he can avoid it. But he will do what he has to to protect all of those under his care.

 _She's with us._ It means a lot more than just baseball.

And as Edward sits silent, and Carlisle's hands are steady at the wheel, Emmett knows they're going for the win.


	7. Steady

VII.

The first person Alice saw when she woke up to her new life was Jasper, sitting on a bucket, looking anguished. Her heart had hurt in the best way, pulling at her with a force she could only describe as the rawest kind of need. But Jasper disappeared after a moment, and the second person she saw was Carlisle, running through the woods behind Edward. He was laughing.

It wasn't until decades later that Alice would learn that she had seen Carlisle's future; that at the time she was turned, he had been every bit as miserable as Jasper. She always thought this was important; that her first vision of Carlisle had been of him experiencing happiness. Of him experiencing what it meant to have a family. And she used his future happiness to drive herself forward, too—as she watched him hunt, she hunted; as she watched him laugh with Edward, she imagined one day having Edward as her friend.

So it's only fitting, she thinks, that the order this morning is the same. That she sees Jasper first, of course—he is her mate, her husband, everything which completes her. But the second person she sees is Carlisle, standing there in a jacket, looking not at all out of place. He's even bought a cup of coffee, as though it matters to his body that it is the crack of dawn.

It feels strange, being here. Their family almost never flies on commercial jetliners—first, there is the problem of the sun, which behaves differently when it is you who is moving through time. And now there is the issue of all the security checks and screenings. They don't trip metal detectors, but she knows that this will become worse over time. She can see a day when maybe people are scanned just like the luggage, and how will vampire skin behave in those conditions? So while this place is the most ordinary of places, it feels deeply out of the ordinary to Alice.

A mechanical voice overhead announces that Seattle, Washington is in the Pacific Time Zone, and the time is five fifty-one AM: first in English, then French, then Spanish, then Mandarin Chinese. Businessmen in suits who have wasted no time flipping open their phones. At one end of the room, a series of black-coated, black-hatted men stand holding signs: _Mr. Donin. Mr. Frederick._ _Ms. Lewis._ The people themselves seem muted, sluggish, as they pull bags off the rotating metal carousels with both hands. The executives grab their solid black bags and stride off with purpose. The hikers pull tall, stuffed backpacks onto their backs and head toward the sign for the LINK. The families—there are only two that Alice can see—pile bags of different sizes onto the airport luggage carts.

The three of them don't have any luggage. There wasn't time for that part of the charade. But she could see they wouldn't be flagged; two young girls flying to Italy don't raise suspicion. She bets that if they'd had Edward with them, he'd have told them that the TSA just thought they were airheads, not terrorists.

So they have no baggage to retrieve and yet, here is the whole family, standing here, in the middle of the hustle that is an airport baggage claim.

Jasper doesn't run to her, and she doesn't run to him. They walk, like a calm human husband and wife who have been separated only for a brief business trip. She takes his hands and gazes into his eyes and knows that he knows she understands his worry, that she is sorry to have left without him, that she was so worried for Edward, that she was had to leave in order to save him. He looks back into her eyes and only nods.

Her husband understands her gift the best of any of them, but even he doesn't fully get it. They all think that there's a set of possibilities at any given time, and that she sees those possibilities, until someone chooses a path which leads definitively toward one of them. She admits that this is partially her fault; she creates her own problem by answering their questions as though this is the real paradigm.

In fact, the future is not like this. It jumps around, it runs parallel, it doesn't bend in the way you'd expect. If time works like a string, then what her family thinks she sees is rows of embroidery floss at the craft store, neatly coiled and packaged and organized by color. But what she really sees is a knot the size of a basketball. You go in on one end and you think that you're following the red string, because the red string comes out the other side of the ball. But it turns out these strings are dyed all sorts of colors, and the string that's red on one end is bright green on the other, and it turns and twists over the yellow, the blue, the purple and that's if she can even see what string was picked to begin with.

And this is what bothers her, even as she stands here, with Jasper's arms around her. She is Edward's age, almost to the day. If they had been adopted as humans as they were adopted as vampires, it would be she and Edward, not Jasper and Rose, who would be presented as twins. Yet she's always thought of him as her younger brother, deserving of her protection. And that's why she jumped on a bushplane in Alaska and then on a widebody in Seattle: it's Edward's string that she has to protect. She sees him standing there, with his arms around Bella, and she knows that this is the part that will hold. Bella will be part of them. This much is certain—this part of the knot that is her little brother has at long last been untied. But she can't yet see the end. Is it purple? Is it orange? And just how does it stay tied to the complicated knot that is Isabella Swan?

Esme is hugging the two of them and scolding him and crying, and Edward hangs his head and apologizes sheepishly. Then she tugs Bella away, toward the door, dragging Edward with them because of course he won't let her go. He hasn't let her go since Italy, and Alice wonders briefly if this will ever happen.

This leaves Carlisle standing alone. He glances over at Jasper and Alice, and a tiny, understated smile appears on his face. He lifts his head ever so slightly, and nods, as though to say he's glad to see them, happy that they are standing there together, pleased his children are with him again.

Alice had to protect her little brother, of course. And that was what she was thinking when she leapt on a plane to Italy. But she didn't only protect Edward. She brought all of them here safely (because Emmett and Rosalie are in the parking garage, she knows), to Sea-Tac airport to leave securely in the morning twilight.

She saw his future first, she thinks, because Carlisle's string has always been the straightest. He is the steady force, moving in only one direction. Pulling all of them inexorably forward, from sadness toward joy, from despair toward hope. Edward is returned, yes, but even more than that, all of them are here. Together. With Bella. Safe.

 _"Seven,"_ she remembers Aro saying, and she didn't need Edward's gift to see him contemplating this coven that his former friend has slowly brought together.

Alice was in Volterra; she and Bella and Edward faced the ancient brothers. Edward's immortal life is saved. But it is Carlisle's future which has moved forward. It is his family which has grown.

 _Eight_.

 _"Thank you,"_ Carlisle mouths, and Alice nods, squeezing her arm around Jasper's, and pulling him closer. Then they, too, make their way to the rest of their family.


	8. Parent

VIII.

His daughter's boyfriend has never so much as accepted the offer of a glass of water during his visits, so he is surprised when the doctor not only accepts the bottle of Rainier, but immediately lifts it to his lips and takes a long, hearty swig.

But then, Charlie thinks, this mess they're meeting about would cause anyone to drink.

This was Renee's idea. When she got done crying, and he got done swearing, and they both had made their peace with the fact that Bella had, somehow, for the second time, returned to Forks after running off with that boy. And he asked what he should do about punishment. And after rounds and rounds of talking, with nothing really coming of it, she'd said, "Maybe you should just talk to Edward's parents." Like it was the most logical thing in the world. And so now the doctor is here, sitting across the table in a too-small kitchen in the middle of the afternoon.

Every piece of furniture in the house is secondhand. There's a set of curtains Renee picked out in the kitchen, yellow with red cherries. He thinks maybe the background once was white. But Charlie likes the house, and he likes the secondhand furniture and the curtains that are old enough to vote. He bought it back when Renee was pregnant with Bella, when they were starting a life, when they were high school sweethearts in love and everything seemed it would be perfect. And when everything crashed and his dreams went to hell, he kept the house. It's a house that is down-to-earth, just like him.

Dr. Cullen, in his pressed shirt and silk tie and shiny leather shoes, is anything but.

"So," Charlie says, and the doctor nods.

"So."

He's just as surly as Edward. This probably shouldn't be a surprise.

"Bella will need to stay at home," Charlie says. "Edward may visit. From seven to nine." He sounds surer of this than he is. He's never laid down any sort of law. Well, in his home at any rate, and this thought makes him chuckle a little bit.

Dr. Cullen nods. "That seems entirely fair."

"And Edward?"

The doctor shrugs. "Esme and I…don't usually ground him. At least not in so many words."

Of course. Because people who are hippie enough to adopt five children probably also subscribe to all those other lovey-dovey parenting styles. Dr. Cullen probably walked around with Edward in one of those baby wrapper things.

He takes a deep breath. "Do you know where they went?"

"Oregon is about what I've managed to get."

This is the extent of what Charlie has managed to get, as well.

"And Edward ran away?" This is what the sister told him. Alice. He likes her. She's cute and bubbly but in a way that Charlie finds endearing instead of annoying. It's a difficult balance to strike.

Dr. Cullen winces, lifts the bottle to his lips, and nods.

It's the wince that catches Charlie up short. He recognizes it. It was the same wince that crossed his face every time he talked anyone about Bella in the fall. He remembers the way that she looked—totally normal, at least physically, but it was as though a light had gone out. She dragged herself from school, to home, and back to school. But during that time, his daughter had been gone. It's these frightening three days, when Bella was physically gone, that have been the most present she's been all year.

And there's something about the doctor's face, the way he now twirls the beer bottle back and forth between his palms as he stares at the linoleum table. Something that makes Charlie realize that maybe Edward was just as gone.

He had been ready to rip the kid's entrails out, if he admits it. He guts fish, gutting a skinny seventeen-year-old couldn't be that much more difficult. But he couldn't keep the anger fresh, not when Bella begged for him, and clung to his shirt and cried.

And as much as Charlie didn't want to admit it, he wasn't going to be able to keep them apart.

"She loves him," Charlie says.

The doctor nods. "He loves her."

And that's the problem, Charlie thinks. Because he and Renee had been in love. And their families had hated it, too. Told them that it wouldn't last; that no one married and stayed in Forks, that love at seventeen—it didn't last.

"Renee and I ran away," he says thoughtfully, and when he looks up, the doctor's eyes are boring into him. They're such an odd color—if the doctor were any younger, Charlie would think it was some sort of fad with contact lenses. But this must be the right color, because contact lenses don't seem to be Dr. Cullen's style. He's looking at Charlie with an intensity that is unsettling. After a long moment, he leans back in his chair, and takes a deep breath.

"I am worried that Edward will make the same mistakes I did, too," Dr. Cullen says quietly.

Charlie frowns. Dr. Cullen does not strike him as the kind of man who makes mistakes.

"You really trust he can make the right decisions?"

The doctor barks a laugh. "Most of the time? I don't trust he can put his underwear on with the fly in the front."

This is news to Charlie. Those kids, with those cars, and all that freedom—they seem like they have every ounce of their parents' confidence.

"But you know," the doctor continues, "there's a fine line between guiding and stifling and I'm trying very hard to be on the right side of it." He takes another swig. "Generally."

Charlie nods. "Generally," he repeats.

And like that, the mood has shifted. It's no longer a war table, where they're coming to hash out the battlefield. Suddenly, they're just two fathers, of two teens. Teens who do stupid things. Teens who run away to Oregon, who fall in love, who may or may not make all the same screwed-up mistakes that they themselves made, no matter how hard either of them works to stop them.

He looks at Dr. Cullen, who is still twirling the bottle. "Does it get any easier?" he asks.

The other man looks up. "I'm sorry?"

"Edward is your youngest. Does it get any easier?"

The doctor's mouth opens as though he's going to say something, but then he doesn't. Instead, he stares at the table. Finally he shrugs and says, "No. It never gets any easier. And I always feel as though I'm somehow getting it badly wrong."

That makes two of them, Charlie thinks. He remembers the way Bella just moved through those months, the shell of herself. The way she barely came back, to hang out with the Black boy, but even then, how everything had been slightly off kilter. And then these three days, with his heart ripped out, calling every tiny local sheriff's office from here to San Diego, only to have no news until she walked back through the front door.

But she did walk back through that door.

"They came back," he says slowly. "So we must have gotten something right."

A tiny smile cracks the doctor's face. "So we must have."

"Well, then." Charlie raises his beer. "To getting something right." He smiles at the Doctor. "And may this godforsaken eternity of our kids giving us heart attacks someday come to an end."

Dr. Cullen seems surprised, and then shakes his head, chuckling as he raises his bottle. "Charlie Swan," he says with a wry smile, "you have no idea how long I've been hoping for that."

He clinks the neck of his beer against Charlie's, and together, they drink.

~||x||~

 **A/N** Way way back on the Twilighted boards, **kittandchips** pointed out that on page 20 in Eclipse, when Charlie is questioning whether Carlisle would be okay with Edward giving up Harvard for the University of Alaska, Edward claims, "Carlisle's always fine with whatever I choose to do." And Charlie just says, "Hmph" in reply, as though he is privy to _something_ regarding what Carlisle thinks about Edward's decision-making that Edward is not. She said it would be interesting, someday, to see what that something was. "Someday" took about 7 years, but this is how I've always imagined it having gone down.


	9. Doctor

IX.

His sheets still have Tonka trucks on them.

At 4 or 5, whenever it was that he got this bed, when they moved to this different house and he stopped having to sleep on a mattress on the floor in his sisters' room, he'd begged for these sheets. Even then, he had the vaguest understanding of what it meant to be poor, and that they fit that criteria, and even at four or five or whenever it was, he felt a little guilty when his mother gave in.

They were some of the last things he remembers her buying for him.

That's not why they're still on the bed though—they're on the bed because they still fit, and they don't have holes in them, and on the rez, you make do. _Especially_ if something isn't broken, you don't replace it. So he hasn't, and instead, here he is lying down, staring at yellow dump trucks and bulldozers and thinking that this time, he's probably really fucked this up.

She prefers him. After last night, that much is clear. And this is probably why he was stupid and got hurt-

"Go away, Dad," Jake growls through chattering teeth at the shadow in the doorway. He got hurt, and that was stupid. He doesn't need a reminder that his dad is worried about him for fuckssake.

But then he smells it—that unholy marriage of an overgrown lilac bush and and open sewer. Not quite the same scent as Edward, but it's close.

The growl is rising in his throat before the doctor really has a chance to step into the room.

"Hello, Jacob," he says, and his voice is gentle. He strides across the room and perches himself on the edge of the twin bed—it's way too small for them both. "You were spectacular out there."

The bloodsuckers are cold, dead, and they stay at the same temperature as the air around them, which must be what, around seventy degrees? Jake's skin is at almost a hundred and nine now, and the difference makes the hand that is now on his shoulder feel so cold it burns.

He hisses.

"I'm sorry." The hand is withdrawn. "I will try to keep touching to the minimum we can." He gestures to Jacob's right side. "May I?"

Annoyingly, Dr. Cullen's bedside manner is impeccable. Jake nods anyway.

There's a sharp intake of breath when the doctor looks at him, and the cold hands only touch in a handful of places before they are withdrawn again. Then he pauses, leaning back away somewhat as he sits.

"What," Jake growls.

"You heal…very quickly," the doctor says carefully.

"And that means what?"

A pause.

"What do you know about orthopedics?"

He narrows his eyes. "I think the better question is what do _you_ know about orthopedics."

Dr. Cullen laughs. "I know plenty." He reaches down and its only then that Jake sees he's brought a bag with him. He pulls a pair of bright blue gloves from the bag and puts them on, and the familiarity of it, the way it seems like this could potentially be any other doctor visit, strikes Jake as being out of place. The next thing he pulls out of the bag is a vial and a syringe.

Jake raises his eyebrows.

"Morphine," the doctor explains. "Though, I'm worried it won't work as well on you with your body temperature what it is."

Another eyebrow raise.

"Edward mentioned your evening."

"He told you about that?"

"He generally tells me everything." He taps the side of the syringe with a flick of his finger, leaving Jake to contemplate the full ramifications of this. Does Edward tell the doctor that he's jealous? About him being worried for Bella coming to the Rez? That he thinks of Jake as a threat?

The stab is so quick, Jake almost doesn't notice it until the doctor is pulling his hands away.

"I'm sorry," he says. "Let that take a moment to set in. I'm going to go talk to your father a moment."

He disappears, leaving Jake staring at the Tonka trucks. His whole body starts to feel kind of… _fuzzy_ would be the right word to describe it if he didn't spend a good portion of his days being actually fuzzy these days…

It isn't long before the doctor comes back, and now it's not just Billy in the doorway, it's Sam.

 _Great_.

He's glad Sam can't hear him.

The doctor takes a deep breath as he walks over. "Jacob, I have bad news and good news."

"Bad news."

He nods. "The bad news is that your body healed too quickly for many of these breaks. In orthopedics, we need to set bones for a reason—otherwise, they heal in positions we don't want them."

He glares at the doc with half closed eyes. "So you're going to…"

Dr. Cullen actually winces. "I need to break the fractures again. I'm sorry. The good news is that you heal quickly. And once I re-set these, you'll heal again just as quickly as you did the first time."

Jake looks up at his father, whose brow is deeply furrowed.

"Hey, Billy, why don't you step out," Sam says. "Not a thing a dad should see." It's the kind of thing Sam can get away with saying that Jake can' puts a hand on Billy's shoulder and guides him out of the room. But not before he calls back, "Now, don't be a pussy, Jacob…"

"Thanks," he mutters.

The doctor turns to him, looking a little apprehensive.

"You aren't afraid of this, are you?" Jake says. "'Cause if you are, this shit's off…"

He chuckles. "No, not at all. It's just that…well, this is going to hurt."

Jake feels the bone snap before he actually sees the doctor move. He _doesn't_ actually see the doctor move. Dr. Cullen still sitting there, calmly as ever, just that now Jake's leg is bent again like it was an hour ago.

And it hurts like a _motherfucker_.

He gasps.

"I'm really very sorry, Jake. The morphine will burn off faster than I can keep up with it, but I will do my best."

He doesn't move again, but somehow there's a sharp pain in Jake's side. That was what, three ribs? Four? A noise rumbles out of his chest that is decidedly girly.

"For fuck's…please."

"I can't stop until I'm finished, Jake, I'm sorry," Dr. Cullen answers him.

"Fine. Then…do something. Talk to me or something."

"About what?"

"What happened? After?"

"Oh that." Dr. Cullen looks at him very calmly. "Your brothers and sister are all safe."

His elbow is next. This time what escapes Jake's lips is something like a cross between a goose honk and a rattlesnake.

He doesn't fail to notice that Dr. Cullen calls them his brothers and sister, though.

"Why brothers and sister?"

Dr. Cullen frowns. "That's what they are, are they not? It's a brotherhood, this pack. A family." This one is a light stinging and Jake realizes he's been hit with another shot of morphine.

"Good, good," the doctor mutters. "They are a family, yes?"

He hasn't thought of it that way, but he guesses the vampire is right. Quil and Embry have always been like his brothers, and Leah—well, she's just as annoying as his real sisters. And when Sam isn't being completely overbearing—

"Well, my family appreciates your family's help." There's a disgusting sucking noise as his shoulder pulls out of its socket and is jammed back in. "I'm sorry that this happened, Jacob, but I'm very grateful to you." He leans back. "That's the last one. I need to immobilize them, but that shouldn't hurt nearly as badly." Other things appear like magic from the bag: brown stretchy athletic bandages and some sort of material that requires Dr. Cullen to get up and go to the bathroom before it can be shaped to Jake's legs and arm. And then the doctor is working at a human pace, slowly winding the bandages around the splints. Jacob watches him with half-closed eyes.

"We were protecting the tribe," Jake manages, but it comes out as a slur.

The doctor nods but says only, "That's the morphine starting to kick in."

Slowly, things begin to disappear back into the bag, and the doctor is checking him over. His eyelids feel very heavy. There's another little sting, and then the sharp snapping that is rubber gloves being removed and the soft ping as they land in the trash can on the other side of the room. He feels, rather than hears Billy come in.

"He'll be just fine," the doctor says quietly. "Thank you for letting me treat him—I was concerned." The old mattress springs up ever so slightly when the doctor stands.

"Hey, Jake," he says. "Thank you again. All of you. We could have lost our family today."

"We were protecting the tribe," Sam's voice says gruffly.

"So you were. But in so doing, you protected my family. And I will never cease being grateful to you for that." There's a rustling as the doctor shoulders his bag, and then footsteps in the hall, and finally Jake hears the front door open and close, and the purr of that sweet black Mercedes.

Jake hears these last words echoing in his head. _"You protected my family."_

 _Family_. The pack, sure. His brothers, older and younger, and the one sister who in her fierceness held her own. He remembers the Cullens, the way they danced around each other, killing as many as they could. The way the doctor and his wife fought back-to-back, the way the blond soldier seemed to be everywhere at once, spinning around the tiny one that was his mate. The way the big brutish one took out five newborns at once.

The way that they were all fighting for Bella in the first place.

Maybe they were a family after all. An alpha, his mate, and brothers and sisters. Just trying to keep them all safe from danger. Willing to jump in and help another family, even if tonight it literally means breaking bones.

And as Jake succumbs to the fuzzy, morphine sleep, he thinks that the unfortunate result of all this is that he might have to stop hating the Cullens quite so hard.


	10. Patriarch

X.

When she first stepped into this room, she thought it looked like the office of a college dean, and the man who sat behind the desk, too young to play the part. It felt aloof, cold, and off-putting. But the room has changed, or maybe she has, and now it's her favorite room in the house. Maybe it's because Charlie Swan and Renee Dwyer aren't the type to own antiques, but Bella never imagined she'd be given free rein in this room, and not only allowed but encouraged to pore over every first-edition and folio. To get as close as she liked to the paintings, and even, with clean hands, to run her fingers across the ridge of oil paint.

She remembers how her heart had skipped a beat that moment when she saw the cross which hangs in the hallway, the way the wood is so old it is like satin, and how she had asked Edward about it, and he had answered with Carlisle's age.

 _Father-in-law._ She is still getting used to using this word, and technically, it isn't true until tomorrow. But because Edward can't hear her, she can try it on inside her head, just as she tries on _husband_ for him.

It sounds only a little less strange now than it did weeks ago.

She doesn't realize how far her mind has wandered she realizes that Carlisle has fallen silent. When she looks up at him, he is smirking.

"I'd ask what it is you are thinking, Isabella," he says gently, "but having never been a bride, and only once a groom, I can imagine that you have quite enough thinking to be going on with." He nods to the book which he has open; it is a weathered translation of the _Tao Te Ching_ , an ancient Chinese text which he had been studying during his time in Italy and which Aro had, for reasons that even Carlisle still doesn't understand, sent to Carlisle's new home in Massachusetts not long after he'd arrived in the new world.

She protests. "No—I'm interested, it's just…"

"Bella." The kind smile is wider now. "It's my fault in the first place, trying to cram in another lesson before tomorrow. I suppose I enjoy our time together too much. No one else listens to me like you do."

This isn't true. Perhaps no one else sits still to hear history the way she does, but if Bella could have a dime for every time a sentence from Edward begins, "Carlisle thinks…" she imagines she could be as wealthy as any of them.

All she says, however, is, "I find that hard to believe."

But he isn't looking at her. He's staring up at the paintings that litter the wall of his study, spelling out his history one lithograph and oil painting at a time. Everything from the Waggoner, to the Solimena, to the Gris—a cubist painting he'd bought during what Carlisle only refers to as Edward's "sojourn," which is a remarkably tempered word, Bella thinks, to be used by someone who had his heart ripped out.

It's the Gris he's looking at, she realizes.

"That one is so interesting," she says.

His head jerks as though somehow, impossibly, he's forgotten that she's there. But then he nods.

"I've been wondering if I ought to take it down."

She shoots him a puzzled look as he stands up and walks over to the wall to study the painting more closely. He stands in front of it, crossing his arms over his chest.

"I kept this," he says, "because I needed to remind myself what could happen if I wasn't careful. That he can hear everything I think, but that he doesn't always understand what I mean when I think it. That if I'm not careful, the best thing in my life will walk out the door, because he has legs of his own."

Then he turns around. "But I don't need that reminder anymore." He smiles. "You, Bella—you have given me, and our family, a gift beyond measure. You've brought Edward the peace I've longed for him for so many decades. aAd then one day, here you are, walking into the high school having no idea what you've gotten yourself into, and then never running, when by all practical accounts, by now you should have…"

It's the same thing Edward says. _"I'm just waiting for the running and screaming to start."_ But coming from Carlisle, it's a different proposition altogether. He doesn't hate himself the way Edward does, and it's not an invitation to reassure him that he is a good person. It's simply a statement of fact.

"There's nothing practical about loving Edward." She finishes her thoughts aloud.

Carlisle laughs. Bella likes the sound of his laughter, which she hears so often these days. Edward says he's hasn't seen Carlisle and Esme so happy since they were the newlyweds.

"You'd think," he says, "that this fact would be something about which I was already aware." He turns to her, grinning. "And yet, I seem to forget."

Then he's fumbling in his pocket, and pulls something out. It's a yellowed piece of what once must have been white satin, about eight inches square. Its edges are finished—a handkerchief. He hands it to her. "I was planning to give this to you before the wedding," he says. "I have no real use for it, of course. So perhaps you ought to have it."

She holds it up. There's nothing particularly remarkable about it. The puzzlement must show on her face, because Carlisle says, "It's from Edward's christening gown. I carry it because people expect someone like me to carry a handkerchief. But also because I never got to hold my son as a baby, and this—well. it reminds me."

Then he's pressing it into her hand, cold hand against thin cloth against warm hand. She takes it, and folds it carefully into quarter squares.

She looks into his eyes. Carlisle is careful never to get too hungry, and she's never seen anything more than a slightly darker shade of gold. Today his eyes are light, in preparation for a houseful of humans tomorrow. Even more so than Edward, Carlisle's eyes are deep—even when her father-in-law is laughing, centuries of loneliness and sorrow have taken their toll on him and his expression always has the slightest hint of desperation. She didn't notice this at first, but she sees it now, now that she is almost a member of this family. Carlisle loves all his children with the boundless, inhuman love that is the vampire trait that defines him, but Edward was first. Edward was special.

And even though it's Charlie who will stand up tomorrow and utter the old-fashioned words, she realizes it's Carlisle who is actually giving his child away.

"Thank you, Carlisle," she says."

He smiles. "Take good care of it."

She folds it carefully, and slides it into her own pocket, feeling its thickness there against her hip. Then, knowing exactly what Carlisle means, she promises him:

"I will."


	11. Christian

XI.

The big house is resplendent.

Her father taught her that word not very long ago, and Renesmee loves the way it sounds—grand, and fancy, and like exactly what it means.

The cottage is pretty, too—evergreen boughs hanging from the eaves and a big tree in the main living room all lit up with white twinkle lights. She and Grandmother spent most of last Sunday afternoon painting little ornaments to go on it, and she's caught her parents just staring at the tree, looking pleased.

But the big house is where the real decorations are. A tree so tall it took her father and her uncles to maneuver it, that reaches all the way to the second story in the open living room. Fresh greenery up the railing of the staircase to the second story. Nine shimmering satin stockings hanging from the mantel. And the candles—her grandmother puts them in every window. They don't have to worry about fire because vampires will never forget they are burning, and so they have real candles, not the electric ones Renesmee sees in town.

So she's very happy to spend the night in the big house, near the tree. She's already made a giant nest of blankets in front of the fireplace, and her grandfather lit a fire two hours ago, which now crackles and glows and sends warm, yellow light crawling across the high ceiling.

There's a pile of gifts beneath the tree, but her mother has assured her there will be even more when she awakes. They told her about Santa Claus, but when she cocked her eyebrow and asked them about the physics of it all (because even if Santa Claus were a vampire, there's no way he could move _that_ fast) they caved at once and told her it was just a tradition. They would be the ones who made gifts appear in the middle of the night, but wouldn't it still be fun to do?

She agreed it would be.

So she's sleeping in the big house tonight, with its warmth and safety and resplendence. And her father and mother have gone on a Christmas Eve hunt with her aunts and uncles because if there's anyone they trust with their daughter, it's Granddad and Grandmother.

She hates being the only one in the family who sleeps, and wonders what it must be like to not have your whole body get slow and heavy when night begins to fall. But she likes the fact that sleeping means a little ritual: Dickens or Bronte or Hardy, the books that her mother loves to read to her and which her father obliges, too. She's never cared for the picture books except when they are art: a few nights ago her father read a beautiful one called _The Polar Express_ and that was fun.

So when her grandfather catches her around the waist and pulls her into the giant chair with him, she only squeals with delight.

Neither of them get cold; she because of her heat and he because of his utter lack of it, but he pulls a thick quilt from the pile next to the chair anyway, because reading under a blanket is just how it is done and they all like to do it right.

But tonight, other than the blanket, his hands are empty.

"Where is the book?"

He shakes his head, smiling. Her grandfather isn't like other grandfathers—he was twenty-three when he was Changed, and he looks like a young man, not like seasoned and older like Grandpa Charlie. But he was just old enough, Renesmee thinks, to have eyes that crinkle, just a little, when he smiles.

"I'm not going to read to you," he says. "There is a book that has this story and it's upstairs, but it's a story I memorized a long time ago. It's a story your parents probably won't ever read to you."

This is odd. Her parents read everything to her, even when the book is too "old" for her, or other people think it's not appropriate.

"Why?"

"Because it's a different, special story," her grandfather says, and his voice rumbles through her back as he speaks. "It's a story they don't believe."

She gives him a puzzled look, but nods and pulls the blanket to her chin.

The story starts in what seems like the middle, a sentence that is finishing off another sentence that he doesn't say. "And so it came to pass," her grandfather begins, "that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed…"

And she listens. To a story about a man and a woman who couldn't find a place to stay, who had a baby—a newborn baby!—in the stable with the animals. About shepherds and one angel, who came to the shepherds in the night.

"Fear not," her grandfather's deep voice says. "For behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly, there was with the Angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, 'Glory to God in the highest, and on Earth, peace, goodwill towards men.'"

He is almost whispering when he says this last part, and then he falls silent. For a minute, or maybe it's only a second, she's not sure, they both just stare silently into the fire.

"That is a true story?" she asks at last.

Her grandfather smiles. "From a long, long time ago."

"Before you were born?"

"A long time before I was born. So long ago, that we can't be certain it really happened." His voice is wistful, maybe a little bit sad.

"But you believe that it did."

His eyes crinkle again, and he nuzzles his nose against hers which makes her giggle.

"Yes, my sweet. I have never, ever believed it more."

As the fire crackles, sending its warm light glowing across the ceiling, her eyelids slowly grow heavy. Her grandfather's arms still encircle her, his chin resting on her head as he breathes slowly. In her mind she hears again, _"I have never, ever believed it more."_ And then, a whisper, and she's not sure if it's a dream or a memory or real, just a soft voice:

"Merry Christmas, Ness."

And as Renesmee's eyelids grow heavy, and she leans against the strong chest that has been warmed by her heat, she thinks that yes, she believes that story too.


	12. Husband

XII.

Only she is allowed to see him naked.

Not nude—that's different. They are vampires, after all, and human clothes have a way of not staying put. At this point even Jacob, who has become as omnipresent as any member of her family, has seen Esme's husband unclothed.

Edward and Bella have taken Renesmee to the Seattle Zoo with Jacob in tow. Jasper and Alice are at the shore. Emmett and Rosalie are hunting in the Olympic Forest. And so it is that the house is empty for the first time in months. No one to see anything except whatever they might happen to forget to clean up. So it is not until just before their third bout of lovemaking that they finally make it to their bed, their clothes having dripped from their bodies throughout the house: Carlisle's pants, puddled on the kitchen floor, her blouse and bra discarded on the piano.

They will have definitely have pick _that_ up before Edward comes home.

Now is the part she loves best, between the raucous, feral, throw-you-against-the-furniture rounds, and the long, in-the-bed, burning-kisses-and-long-caresses ones. When they lie here, skin-to-skin up the entire length of their bodies, her slender legs trapped between his muscular thighs.

Her hands find their way into his hair as they kiss. His is longer and thicker than those of any of their three sons'; hair she loves to run her fingers through. She toys with the one stubborn lock at his forehead, a piece too short to be tucked behind his ear. It drives him crazy, but she likes it because it makes him seem less formal. A tiny hint to others that beneath the proper, buttoned-up doctor is this man she knows, who swings his granddaughter into the air, who trash-talks his sons over baseball, who sometimes blows raspberries on Esme's belly during these post-coital embraces just because it makes her giggle. She tells him this last thing is terribly unsexy, but that's not actually true, because it makes him laugh and she is never more attracted to him than when he laughs.

Now, though, his golden eyes are briefly vacant, staring out the glass wall which makes up the back of the huge house. From here, they can see the Sol Duc wandering through the forest, and in the distance, the mountains. And between them and the mountains, though neither of them can see it, the broad open field where they twice confronted their enemies…

"Is _that_ what you're thinking about," she murmurs.

"Mrrrm?" The golden eyes refocus; the brow furrows.

"They're not coming back for a long time." She's careful not to say they're not coming back, because that is a lie and they both know it. But she kisses him, and tickles the back of his calf with her toes.

He sighs. "I worry."

She cocks her eyebrow. _I worry_ is the kind of thing he says to their children. Dropping her hand to his hip, she begins to caress his side. After almost ninety years, she knows it's _not_ speaking, ironically, that will prompt him to elaborate.

A moment later, he mutters, "I'm scared."

He wriggles free of her legs, and pulls his knees toward his chest. Despite her concern, she smiles inwardly that her nearly-invincible husband still curls into a ball when he feels threatened. She doesn't coax him to unwind, but lays against him anyway, his knees against her chest, as she runs her fingers down the nape of his neck. The months have been a whirlwind—of watching Renesmee grow, of packing up from Christmas, of cleaning up the Island. Their lack of time for lovemaking has prohibited this time as well, and she wonders how long her husband has been stewing these thoughts.

"It just…it took so long. For me to find you…and for Edward…I just"—his voice wavers and begins to break—"I can't lose you. I can't lose any of you. I can't _do_ that again, Esme…"

And suddenly he is crying as their kind cry, gasping, tearless sobs. Because he is a man who is scarred. The physical ones, yes, and Esme is careful to touch those only when permitted. He lone among them bears scars from his Turning that were the result of violence, not love. He carries that pain with him, and the pain of centuries which followed—a loneliness she pretends to understand, but which she knows, deep down, she will never fully fathom. And she can count on the fact that the fear of that loneliness will forever break him like glass.

"I can't protect you..."

She shakes her head, and her hair brushes his bare shoulders. "You don't have to."

If she had their granddaughter's gift, he could see what she is remembering. The way their friends stood with them; their newest daughter shielding them and buying them the time they needed. Time they needed to handle things Carlisle's way. With talking. And reason.

She wants to promise him that everything will be all right, that he will never lose them, that she will be at his side for all eternity. But she can't promise that. Even with Alice, they can't be certain. So she puts her arms around him, and promises the only thing she can, the thing she promised him eighty-six years ago, the thing she promises him again with every caress, every shared knowing look, and every giggle met with laughter.

"Whatever we face," she whispers, "we face together. My love, you are no longer alone." Pressing her thumbs to his cheekbones, she wipes away the tears which will never fall. And he leans into her hands, closing his eyes so that his eyelashes flutter against her fingers.

"We all protect one another," she repeats. "Carlisle, you will _never_ be alone again.

She wraps her arms around his shoulders. Slowly, the knees relax, and he stretches out again, and they are pressed against each other, hip to hip, her feet caressing his legs and his hands coming to rest in the small of her back as he buries his head in her collarbone. For a long while he is silent; his back slowly expanding and contracting as he breathes.

"I love you." He whispers this into her skin, so that it seems almost that the hairs on her neck are what transmits the sound.

"As I love you."

He is aroused again, as is she, and she knows they will make love again soon. For now, this embrace is enough. In the empty house, his breathing echoes, the quiet rhythm like the heartbeat none of them have. He is the father, their leader, their mentor, their guide. The steady hand at the helm.

But she is the one whom he lets see him naked. And she is thankful for that.


	13. Father

XIII.

Even before Bella, it had been a long time since they had done this. With all of brothers and sisters, to say nothing of his own penchant for solitude, it's a rare day that Edward finds himself hunting with Carlisle alone.

Carlisle's hunt is careful, practiced, surgical. He tracks and stalks his prey with military precision, taking a scent and extrapolating distance, time, angle. It's the hunt of a man obsessed with science, and even more so, obsessed with returning quickly, remaining as human as he can.

And even after almost ninety years, Edward still marvels.

His father's thoughts are a wordless contentment, like the way that housecats often begin purring just because their caretaker is near. But Edward is not Carlisle's caretaker; it is quite the other way around. It should be he who is content to be with Carlisle, he thinks, but there's a tiny part of him that is only half paying attention to this hunt and to their time together. Carlisle hasn't missed this, and Edward hears the word _Distracted_ in his thoughts.

"I'm sorry," he says as they run. Though Edward is the fastest of all of them, Carlisle is not slower by much, and as they race through the foothills, they match each other stride for stride. There was a recent snowfall, and they move so fast they leave the shimmering white almost untouched as they go.

"It just…it feels strange now," Edward says a mile later.

The statement is met by puzzlement.

"Was it like this for you? When you went from being alone to having Esme and me?"

The noise that comes out is more of a bark than a laugh. _You're missing them._

Edward pulls up short, spraying snow into the air. It lands in his hair, and he can see himself in Carlisle's mind, with patches of white among locks of reddish brown. Carlisle stops too, more slowly, and at once begins brushing the snow off of Edward's head.

"We've only been gone one night," he hears himself say as he ducks out from under Carlisle's hand, and it's the same petulant voice his daughter has. The one that dares him to insist that something is bothering her that she'd rather not admit.

Well at least now he knows where _that_ came from.

Carlisle laughs again, but this time its an easy laughter. "Yes," Carlisle answers aloud after a long moment. "It was like this."

And he floods Edward with his memories—the utter contentment of sitting in the living room as Edward played the piano, the waves of romantic love he felt toward Esme, his sadness and shame the day that the California Perfume Company woman made a surprise visit and proved too tempting for Esme to resist. The gut-twisting despair when Edward stormed out of their house in Vermont…

"That's enough," Edward says, but the despair is replaced at once with a different pain: the relief that Carlisle felt the day he returned, a joy so deep and complete it borders on agony.

 _My life wasn't mine anymore_ , comes the thought. _My heart hasn't been mine ever since._

Edward cocks his head.

"That's an interesting way to put it."

"Yes." The laughter again. "It's the only way to put it. What is it that little plaque says? That they sell in the gift shops? 'To have a child is to forever have your heart go walking around outside your body?'"

"That's completely hokey."

"Yes." Carlisle grins. "Unfortunately, it also happens to be true."

They are wearing snow gear, which hampers their movement ever so slightly, but is necessary during these winter months, when the Olympic range is at its most beautiful and climbers, with their backpacks and crampons and ice picks, are strangely plentiful. If they run into humans, they need to look the part. So when Carlisle's hand finds Edward's shoulder, it feels strangely muffled through all the layers of fabric.

"It's strange to be depended on," he mutters.

This time, Carlisle doesn't laugh. Instead, he nods slowly and knowingly.

 _It is._ But then he smiles.

"It's also wonderful."

And there's another flood of memories and emotions—the two of them, running through the woods of Wisconsin, chasing elk and deer and all manner of other fauna: joy and carefreeness. The first time Edward hugged Carlisle voluntarily: surprise, warmth, love. These old memories are intertwined with newer ones, snaking their way into Edward's head. Edward, holding out his daughter to Carlisle: deep, unalloyed pleasure. Edward throwing Renesmee into the air, her body twisting and turning as she shrieks and giggles while falling back down: pride.

 _I still can't believe I get to share fatherhood with you._

The hand on the shoulder changes position, reaching around him and pulling him close. Edward and Carlisle have always been the same height, proportioned the same, more easily passing for brothers than father and son. Their embraces have always been comfortable, easy. A warmth floods him that seems to fill his entire body. Even a few months ago he wouldn't have recognized it as easily, but now it only takes him seconds to recognize the desperate, unrelenting love of a father. They simply stand there, together, as the wind howls past them on the mountain, swirling snow into the air.

They smell alike, which is something Edward finds both annoying and comforting. Carlisle's scent is earth, spice. His is sweeter—Esme describes it as smoked cinnamon—and Edward's is darker. Carlisle says Edward smells like nutmeg. Edward finds this mortifying.

He didn't get to choose this life, the way his wife did. And he's screamed at Carlisle so many times over the years; calling him selfish, and horrible, and all manner of terrible things Edward can never take back. But Carlisle barely flinches; he sees himself so clearly, and Edward knows he is lucky to have accidentally entered this world the way that he did. He would like to think that on his best days, he has Carlisle's best qualities. He knows that on his worst days, he falls far, far short.

The air _does_ smell of nutmeg, and it takes Edward a moment to realize he's back in Carlisle's head, whose nose is buried in Edward's hair. He pulls back, laughing.

"I was thinking about how I smell like you, too," he says.

Carlisle grins. _You are all the best parts of me, son._

"But much less patient."

Another barked laugh. "And some of the worst parts of me, too. I love them both." He cocks his head in the direction of the foot of the mountain. "We don't have to finish the hunt." Edward puts his hands in front of him, protesting physically, but Carlisle shakes his head.

"There are other hunts, and other times," he says. "We've already fed once." When Edward begins to speak, Carlisle cuts him off.

"Edward Cullen, whenever I find myself missing you, I turn around, and I go home."

He leans in, and before Edward can protest, Carlisle's lips brush his forehead, and then he takes off at full speed down the mountain, sunlight glinting off his hair and reflecting in the snow.

Edward stands stunned, for just a moment. He barely resists wiping his forehead with the back of his hand, but thinks better of it, and then, as he has so many times before, he breaks into a sprint to catch his father.

~ _fin~_

 **A/N** Wallace Stevens, I am not (he's a lot more succinct), but I hope you've enjoyed reading these little vignettes as much as I've enjoyed writing them. I can't promise I'll ever again write fanfic as regularly as I used to, but these characters, especially Carlisle, seem to never want to let me go. So for the foreseeable future...know that I'm never _quite_ done with them. Thank you for letting me share my thoughts on them with you. Until next time, happy reading. -g


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